CCSD super briefs lawmakers on pandemic challenges
Dec. 8—CUMBERLAND — Cobb Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said Tuesday his district has seen a "slight uptick" in COVID-19 cases, which he anticipates will continue with the arrival of the omicron variant.
"Nothing dramatic, at all, to speak of," Ragsdale told lawmakers Tuesday during a pre-legislative session summit held at the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, but the school district is "expecting the numbers to go up."
The announcement came after the district tweaked its COVID quarantine protocols for students last week, based on new guidance from the Georgia Department of Public Health.
Per John Floresta, the school district's chief strategy and accountability officer, students identified as close contacts but who did not have symptoms previously were quarantined for three days. Now, asymptomatic students may immediately return to the classroom.
The uptick in cases is of the reasons Ragsdale believes, as he's said before, "virtual (learning) is probably here for at least the foreseeable future." With that in mind, Ragsdale asked lawmakers to at minimum defend the state funding levels for virtual students.
"Virtual students are funded at 60% of the (funding) of a full time student," Ragsdale said. "And while we're not necessarily saying we want equal funding of 100% ... we definitely do not want to see that 60% diminish at all."
That ask was among several presented by the district to lawmakers Tuesday as it continues to grapple with the pandemic's fallout in public education. Cobb Schools lost about 5,000 students during the pandemic, many of them kindergartners. Raises and bonuses have failed to address staffing shortages among food service workers and bus drivers.
"We have over 75,000 students that run buses to and from school and home each and every day. There's a very high percentage bus ridership," Ragsdale said. "You're talking about triple digit bus driver shortages. That's a significant impact to the operation of the school district."
Ragsdale also touched on the millions in federal funds the district has received, encouraging legislators not to change the regulations of how that money can be spent, since the district's expenses require state approval.
"I think it's very important that as we continue down this path ... we make sure that we're keeping the eye on the goal," he said. "We certainly don't want to have a scenario of being in the middle of the game and the rules change. Once the rules are established, it's very important for us to maintain those rules."
Surprisingly absent from Tuesday's meeting was any discussion of the school district's review by accreditation agency Cognia, whose findings were released last month. State Rep. Erick Allen, D-Smyrna, had previously told the MDJ that if the school district didn't raise the topic at Tuesday's meeting, lawmakers would. Ragsdale did not touch on the report during his remarks, and lawmakers said after the meeting that opening up discussion would have stretched the scope of the meeting beyond reasonableness.
It's now been nearly a month since the district received the report, and save for some individual comments from school board members, its findings have yet to be discussed in a public forum.
Board of Education Chairman Randy Scamihorn told the MDJ the board would discuss the report in an executive session when it meets for its monthly meeting on Thursday. Under Georgia law, however, government bodies are only to discuss a handful of subjects behind closed doors: real estate, legal matters, personnel, and student disciplinary matters.
"I don't know if it's legal," state Rep. David Wilkerson, D-Powder Springs, said after the meeting. "That's the bottom line is, it's a report that's of significance to everybody who has a child in the school system, everybody who works for the school system, and I think it deserves a public discussion.
"What caused this has been a public battle, and I think it needs to be a public discussion. It seems pretty straightforward — you take the information they gave you, you discuss how you're going to move forward, and you take corrective action. It's not that difficult, it really isn't."
